Various organizations make use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software architectures to provide an integrated, computer-based system for management of internal and external resources, such as for example tangible assets, financial resources, materials, customer relationships, and human resources. In general, an ERP software architecture is designed to facilitate the flow of information between business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside service providers, stakeholders, and the like. Such architectures often include one or more centralized databases accessible by a core software platform that consolidates business operations, including but not limited to those provided by third party vendors, into a uniform and organization-wide system environment. The core software platform can reside on a centralized server or alternatively be distributed across modular hardware and software units that provide “services” and communicate on a local area network or over a network, such as for example the Internet, a wide area network, a local area network, or the like.
As part of the installation process of the core software platform on computing hardware owned or operated by the organization, one or more customized features, configurations, business processes, or the like may be added to the default, preprogrammed features such that the core software platform is configured for maximum compatibility with the organization's business processes, data, and the like.
The core software platform of an ERP software architecture can be provided as a standalone, customized software installation that runs on one or more processors that are under the control of the organization. This arrangement can be very effective for a large-scale organization that has very sophisticated in-house information technology (IT) staff and for whom a sizable capital investment in computing hardware and consulting services required to customize a commercially available ERP solution to work with organization-specific business processes and functions is feasible. Smaller organizations can also benefit from use of ERP functionality. However, such an organization may lack the necessary hardware resources, IT support, and/or consulting budget necessary to make use of a standalone ERP software architecture product and can in some cases be more effectively served by a software as a service (SaaS) arrangement in which the ERP system architecture is hosted on computing hardware such as servers and data repositories that are maintained remotely from the organization's location and accessed by authorized users at the organization via a thin client, such as for example a web browser, over a network.
In a typical development process for such applications, a developer might enter a desired technical configuration into a spreadsheet or other file that is then sent to content developers who create a complete version of the configuration based on the technical configuration. The desired technical configuration, which describes the desired features of a new configuration of a software solution, can be designed using an enterprise modeling tool, such as for example the ARIS™ platform (available from IDS Scheer AG of Saarbücken, Germany). Such an enterprise modeling tool can be used to develop a business process model that represents business tasks and processes use in the conduct of the business of an organization.
The business process model is then generally converted to an executable, active implementation, for example using a service-oriented application and integration platform, such as SAP NetWeaver™ (available from SAP AG of Walldorf, Germany). A service-oriented application and integration platform can provide development and runtime environments for a core software platform as well as capabilities for developing customized solutions and integrating the core software platform and/or the customized solution with other applications and systems such as those provided by third party service providers.
A service-oriented application and integration platform can provide built-in governance features that enable a developer, administrator, or other information technology (it) professional to achieve a consistent design of services, processes, and events across the business processes of an organization or enterprise. With tools delivered through the ES Repository, IT professionals can model metadata, reuse standard data types, and harmonize service signatures to ensure that services are well designed, consistent, of high quality, fully-described, and available for use at runtime. IT organizations can also define and manage access rights to control who has the ability to create, change, view, or delete service metadata. Finally, as the number of published enterprise services increases, IT professionals can use repository tools to combine, reassemble, or delete services to ensure effective and high-quality reuse.
A database, such as for example an enterprise services repository (ESR), can store the definitions and metadata of enterprise services for an organization based on the execution terms of the completed configuration generated using the service-oriented application and integration platform. In this manner, an integrated modeling environment can be provided for defining enterprise services, data types, and other design objects for service oriented architecture-based business processes in a standards-compliant manner. The ESR can store modeling data relating to an organization's business process, including relevant interfaces, data types, and mappings for message exchange between different software components and applications that are used in configuring and running needed business processes in an organization-specific system landscape.
Using this approach, however, can lead to several difficulties, including but not limited to a heightened potential for transcription errors in transferring the technical configuration defined in the business process model from the enterprise modeling tool to the service-oriented application and integration platform that completes the configuration to provide the integrated business process solution. The process of enterprise modeling using one tool followed by development of the interfaces, associations, dependencies, and the like necessary to generate an integrated, customized solution that is end user ready using second tool is also time consuming and highly redundant. An improved approach is desirable.